Saints‘ Hill Church Podcast

The King is Here: Faith that Makes God Marvel

What kind of faith makes Jesus marvel?

This last Sunday we read from Luke 7v1-10 the story of the Roman centurion seeking Jesus out for a miracle.

Here we have a Gentile who has grasped a kingdom concept before many Israelites had. The centurion sees Jesus as a warrior king, as the highest ranking official in all of creation. So much so that sickness and death yield, demons flee, and storms cease at His word. He understands there’s nothing he could do to earn or deserve the mercy of this king, yet he still approaches Him in boldness on behalf of his sick servant. 

And Jesus marvels. 

May we be the people who take Jesus at His word, and in humility approach our merciful King to see the impossible on this side of heaven. 

The King is Here: A Disciple’s Foundation

What is the foundation of the disciple, according to Jesus?

In Luke 6v46-49 Jesus tells a parable about two different people, building their houses on two different foundations. He’s telling us there’s two ways you can build your life…

Those who only call him Lord, are recognizing reality, but are stopping short of living in it. True disciples not only recognize their King, but submit in allegiance to Him, responding to the words He speaks. Allegiance to King Jesus, commitment to God’s way and God’s people, and deep connection to the Father are what our lives ought to be marked by as disciples.

May we be the type of disciples who trust Him to the degree that we can take Him at His word every time He speaks. That we would see heaven come to earth through the commitment of God’s people to His heart and His ways

The King is Here: Freedom from Self Righteousness

In Luke 6v37-45 Jesus is teaching an abundance worldview. A worldview that doesn’t walk around empty or with lack, but a way of living that is full of God and sees the world differently because of fullness. It’s about becoming the real deal, bearing fruit not because you tried, but because you received.

You see, the person who hasn’t really seen the abundance of God, is self righteous.

But live as though God has a surplus for you, forgiven you, poured out on you, cared for you, and watch how you begin to find grace and mercy around every turn.

A person who hasn’t fully understood God’s grace to them, will either neglect the sin in their life or avoid it out of fear of becoming it.

Only someone who knows that what God thinks about them is secure enough to address the log…the sin in their life. And when grace has covered, and empowered transformation in you, you will be able to see clearly with kingdom eyes, not just people’s sin, but their potential in Jesus. This reality is what allows us to live within the family of disciples well. 

The King is Here: How to Love Like God

As we work our way through the book of Luke, we are entering into some of Jesus’ most famous teachings. In Luke 7v27-36, Jesus gives a word that seems to set an incredibly high bar for what it looks like to live in the kingdom.

Many of us look at our lives and see a great discrepancy between the lifestyle laid out in the sermon on the mount, and how we actually live. How can we become the kind of people Jesus is talking about in this passage? Perhaps it’s less about what you can change about yourself, and more about how you view God.

Do you believe that He only has kind thoughts about you, and good intentions towards you? The key is this: we let His love and mercy get so deep inside us that we became more loving and merciful. This change happens from the inside out, and it’s the only way to life abundantly in the kingdom.

There is no end to His love, therefore we lack nothing. Be encouraged by this word, and let Him love you again today.

The King is Here: People of His Kingdom

How do you make decisions in relationship with Jesus?  How does the kingdom come, and to who?

This last Sunday Bria Wolter taught us through Luke 6v12-26 where Jesus demonstrates and addresses answers to both of these questions.

What we learn from Jesus is that decision making is relational. Jesus made decisions in relationship with His Father. This is how the kingdom breaks out. In this passage Jesus teaches that holy discontentment and hunger will produce the kingdom of God. He challenges us to examine where we find our abundance, and encourages us that abundant life is only found in relationship with Him.

May we find ourselves wholly discontented with what the world has to offer for our satisfaction, that He would take us deeper and deeper into the glory of knowing Him and being loved by Him. We pray that our dependence on Him would produce the kingdom in and around us in ways we can’t even imagine. 

The King is Here: Lord of the Sabbath

In Luke 6v1-11 Jesus claims that He is Lord of the Sabbath. What does that mean for us?

Practicing Sabbath is a physical reminder to our bodies that our value isn’t tied to what we produce, but to whom we belong. Sabbath is a beautiful gift, but it’s also easy to miss with the wrong heart posture.

The problem for many when it comes to Sabbath, is that they think they can solve an identity problem, with a better schedule…but there is no schedule that can out-run a misplaced identity. If you don’t know how God really feels about you and who He wants to be for you, you will turn the gift of Sabbath into a righteousness signal like the Pharisees.

The only way to true rest is by getting the Lord of the Sabbath. If you want real rest you need a relationship with a person, not a discipline. Only by staying close to Him, laying down our insecurities and our self-seeking agendas, do we find the deep soul rest we’ve always longed for.

We exist to be blessed by God, and give that blessing away. It’s a Sabbath life!

The King is Here: A Sacramental Worldview

What is a sacramental worldview?

At Saints’ Hill we value the movement of God above doing things the way we’ve always done them. This is how we have learned to stay in step with the new thing God could be doing in any given season. This last Sunday Alex introduced to us a new “wineskin” (Luke 5v33-39). This new wineskin is a way of looking at the world that we believe will keep us open to the new thing God is up to.

This sacramental worldview is a life that looks for the presence of God in everything. A life that points to and participates in spiritual realities. We need this sacramental worldview for two reasons:

So that in every season we don’t define God’s nearness by only our feelings. So that we recognize and walk through the sacramental doors in our lives, the places where heaven and earth overlap.

This is the type of living that bears fruit - evidence of participation in the presence of God. It’s what we were made for!

The King is Here: The King’s Desire

This last Sunday Chris Sharp gave a teaching on the heart of God and the difference between mercy and sacrifice.

In Matthew 9v13 Jesus says, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The people hearing this at the time, would’ve had an Old Testament understanding of the word sacrifice. Where you lose something or exchange one thing for another. Chris’ encouragement to us is that a New Covenant view of sacrifice, through the lens of mercy, counts every sacrifice as gain.

Think about Jesus on the cross, did He do that out of obligation? Did He think He was losing something? Or was it from great mercy that He counted it as a gain to go to the cross. How incredible that the heart of God is and always has been, relationship.

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The great privilege of our life is to love Him and be loved by Him.

The King is Here: Whose Authority is it Anyways?

This last Sunday we jumped back into our Luke Series. Bria taught us through the story in Luke 5v17-26 where Jesus heals a paralyzed man. There's a lot happening in this story, but the key idea of this passage is Jesus' authority. 

 

From this passage, we see that Jesus has authority to forgive sins, authority to heal, and authority as the Son of Man. 

 

In a time where many believed sickness was caused by sin, Jesus knew that the most important thing for this man to hear was that he was forgiven, and called a friend. The visible act of healing in this story points to an invisible reality of God's love for humanity and the inbreaking reality of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus' authority as the Son of Man now seated at the right hand of God, reveals to us what we now have access to -- restored partnership with God. Everything under our feet. 

 

This is good news! We no longer live with any fear, because we know who has the authority. We are awake to the reality of Jesus and we long to see all of heaven turn itself towards our town as we walk in the authority we've been gifted.

Mercy That Revives

Understanding God’s love creates the context in your life for heaven to come.

This last Sunday, Alex told us four stories from his journey to experiencing more of God’s love. Experiences that taught him about our identity as sons and daughters, the Christian life as relationship with Jesus instead of relationship with a philosophy, hunger that leads to a taste and see life, and childlike dependence that brings more of the Holy Spirit’s activity.

These experiences are essentially what Saints’ Hill was built on, and it’s a joy to watch Him exchange the spirit of heaviness over Newberg for a garment of praise as we follow Him together.